


things we invent (when we are scared and want to be rescued.)

by ftwnhgn



Category: Groundhog Day - Minchin/Rubin
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Sick Character, Sickfic, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 06:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11777562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ftwnhgn/pseuds/ftwnhgn
Summary: Phil knows he should have stayed in bed this morning when he woke up and his nose felt slightly clocked.





	things we invent (when we are scared and want to be rescued.)

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up this morning and felt sick as heck, then it went away for a few hours, and now my throat hurts like hell and I don't know what's going on, but, hey, why not use this as inspiration to write something? Turn your pain into art and all that. 
> 
> The rating is for the amount of swearing in this. (Phil swears a hell lot, Rita too.) I've always been fascinated by American's reluctance to swear because over here nobody really cares. Though, I'm pretty much on my way to be the worst it could get (don't let me around your kids, is what I'm telling you.) But I like how natural it is in Groundhog Day for the characters to do it and I thought when you're feeling like shit, your tolerance is even lower than usual and when you're Phil Connors it's even lower. 
> 
> I proofread this but, well, no one is perfect, so every error, mess-up of similar sounding words or half-finished phrases you find are now yours. Congratulations.
> 
> Title: I Had A Dream About You - Richard Siken (bc I'm going with poetry titles for them as it seems) (and the title is dramatic but who cares)

Phil knows he should have stayed in bed this morning when he woke up and his nose felt slightly clocked.

Of course, he didn’t listen to himself. He got out of bed; maybe with a little less force and motivation than on any usual day; and maybe he showered under water that was so hot that his skin was a horrible red when he towelled himself off but still freed his nose from that disgusting sticky feeling he knew too well, but he got out of bed and got to work and when he wasn’t motivated after hearing his alarm clock, he sure as hell was motivated once he made it to the station.

His nose stayed free for the first few hours, in which he suffered through a meeting about a possible trip he had to take to New Jersey because of some weird hurricane alarm that was to 90% bullshit – their weather channels and reporters were as untrustworthy as their barbershops; Frankie Valli probably the only good thing that has ever come from there and even that guy had been knee-deep in some mafia-payback-shit back in the day – and after meeting up with Larry to talk about mindless stuff of their lives outside of work and about the preparations for their daily forecast and he nearly felt as good as new, as fine as a spring morning. He nearly believed that the events of his morning were just a hoax, a little scare due to his age or because some God didn’t agree with him staying up late and wanted to flip him the metaphorical bird a little less metaphoric.

Then lunch rolls around and he finds himself sitting across from Rita, who just got back from her work trip to Florida to cover a flood story with another forecaster, trying to act like swallowing the burger he ordered doesn’t feel like eating razors handpicked by Satan himself as a farewell dinner, and failing miserably if her critical gaze is anything to go by.

“Phil, are you okay?” she asks him in between stabbing a few pieces of pasta onto her fork and eating them slowly, the way she always does to savour the taste despite the canteen’s terrible reputation when it comes to … anything, actually, that isn’t black coffee.

He nods intensely as he chews and tries to screw his eyes shut as minimally as possible as he swallows the bites down his throat.  “Sure,” he answers, his voice sounding way too hoarse even to his own ears for him to come across as healthy.

“ _Phil_ ,” Rita warns him, the critical look in her eyes becoming even _more_ critical and, _Jesus_ , how does she do this?

Phil puts the last chunk of the burger down onto the plate before him and takes a sip of his water. _Fuck_ , he should have gone with tea instead, or milk and honey or whatever kind of stuff people, who can’t swallow, drink to make it go away before they have to do a weather forecast in half an hour.

“Rita,” he quips, smiling at her.

“You sound like a horse stomped onto your windpipe,” she tells him, her honesty as charming as ever and if he wouldn’t love her so much, he’d be offended.

“Thank you for your kind observation,” he answers, ignoring how talking starts to hurt. “Your compliments always boost my ego like nothing else does.”

Humour to cover up his miserable state has always been his best strategy and got him through most of his life _just fine_ since he was able to comprehend what humour is and how adults use it to mask literally _everything_ and he’s not about to not try as well now. If he’s going down, he might as well go down in style and swinging and while trying to get a rise out of Rita.

“This is _not_ funny, you know,” she remarks and violently stabs another noodle with her fork and, oh, is Phil glad to not be her food right now, he must have ticked her off in the right way.

“How long has it been going on, anyway?” she then asks. “I mean, since you obviously went to work despite being sick. But as far as I know you and your brain, you thought either nothing of it _or_ that you have to prove yourself because of that weird superior complex of yours that you still haven’t and can’t _seem_ to let go off and need to satisfy whenever the boat you’re on seems to keel over. Or, in normal people’s worldview, seems to move two centimetres away from the path you decided to follow.”

Okay, maybe she’s being more dramatic than he is, Phil thinks, as he rests his hands on his thighs, digging his nails a bit into his slacks as he swallows once more and it hurts even more before speaking up.

“Does me being sick mean that I get a free therapist session with you? Because then I can postpone my usual sessions on Sunday to another time,” he responses and knows that he’s being a dick about it, but he has always been a tad too snarky for his own good _when_ feeling unwell. And his voice, hardened by sarcasm, doesn’t do a good job at hiding his resentment at himself for getting sick in the first place.

Who gets sick in September anyway?

“So, you _are_ sick,” Rita says, smugness written all over her mouth and the scrunch of her nose while concern is visible in her eyes and the lines on her forehead, above the bridge of her nose. She’s the only person he knows, who’s able to be concerned while still calling himself out on his bullshit.

Phil shakes his head, a coughing fit hitting him in the moment he takes a breath and making him topple over to one side. It’s only two or three coughs and it’s over in twenty seconds tops, but it hurts in his chest and his throat and his eyes get a little teary as he forces the last one out. His nose is clocked when he turns back to Rita.

“You _need_ to get home,” she states bluntly and without much room to argue. “ _Now_.”

But Phil wouldn’t be Phil, if he wouldn’t protest.

“No,” he starts. “I’m doing the forecast. And I still have another meeting to attend. You can drag me out of here and drive me home or to the next emergency room if you like, but not before seven pm,” he tells her and grits his teeth, vehemently standing his ground. He’s not missing a forecast and he’s not letting himself slack on the job when he’s not terminally ill.

“Phil,” she warns him another time, how she says his name sounding a lot like ‘ _you goddamn idiot_ _’_ to his hears.

His phone vibrates on the table between them; his alarm reminding him to get back to work; and she looks at his iPhone and then at him darkly. Phil ignores it pointedly and takes his suit jacket from his chair before he stands up.

“You can’t do this,” Rita reminds him, concern and a trace of anger in her voice. “You’re _sick_ , Phil.”

Phil picks up his plate and tray and grins at her through the carved-out feeling right above his breast-bone.

“Watch me.”

*

 

He’s not dying once the camera starts to roll, but he feels like he’s pretty damn close near death the closer he comes to finishing his forecast. There’s sweat on his forehead – he can feel it – and he’s sweating through his expensive shirt as well, silently praying to whoever listens up there that he can keep it from his suit jacket until he’s through. He had to repress coughs since about minute two, when he switched from his usual greeting and introduction to the weather predictions for the night and he’s working himself through the twenty-four hour forecast with small and shallow breaths that make his voice sound raspy but make him able to talk a bit more precisely and pronounced, the viewers possibly being happy to have this one small flaw in his routine eliminated for once.

He can’t help but not see the silver lining in this when he’s good on his way to his closing statement and usual farewell and his throat feels like it’s been set on fire, his lungs – or his bronchia? He’s not so sure anymore what it is that’s affected, but could also be just about fucking _everything_ between his diaphragm and his forehead – basically his chest feels like not only one horse but a whole _herd of them_ has used it as their stomping ground. Moving his chin in any direction humanly possible is not releasing him from the pressure or the pain, just making it hurt even more, as if tiny little steel threads are tugging at his throat.

On top of it all his head feels hot; feverish even, the sweat not really making it better or being a relieve, impeding Phil’s possibility to think clear and steady thoughts.

His tie is suffocating him at this point and he can’t see _any_ appeal in keeping it on. _Fuck_.

Just a few more sentences, just one more animation to go through and then he has a fifteen-minute break to dunk his head into ice water to cool it down and to get some tea from anywhere in this fucking building, probably from some of the older sound guys, he doesn’t fucking care anymore at this point, he just _needs_ to sit down and get this under control.

“And this has been Good Weather with Phil –“

 _One word_ , it would have been _one word_ , but Phil has to break it off to turn away from the camera, his mind at least not too far gone for him to forget to take two steps to the left to be out of the shot, and then he can’t help it anymore and coughs violently and loudly into his jacket sleeve.

It hurts – _fucking hell_ , does it hurt – and he blindly grabs after anything to hold on to while he can’t seem to stop coughing and his chest starts to feel too airy and too small to be considered normal and he’s hot _everywhere_ , his head burning up and his knees shaking from the force he needs to get the rasping and the weirdly fluid stuff, that’s not only clocking his nose anymore but now also his windpipe, out.

He can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe and the realization hits him so suddenly that he can’t even curse and he can see his team standing behind the camera but watching him, Larry being the one closest to him because he probably stepped forward when Phil fucked up his broadcast, and hell – screw that he can’t breathe, who the fuck needs air _when Phil fucked up his broadcast for the first time in his life_. That never happened before, he doesn’t let stuff like this happen, he’d rather chop his microphone-hand off than let this happen and yet.

_And yet._

The shame and guilt nearly feel worse than the physical pain inside his chest and it makes him hold on more tightly to whatever he’s holding on to since he had to leave the studio set – must be a microphone stand for one of the big ones, or one for the lights or anything he’s not supposed to touch; because it’s situated somewhere Phil is not supposed to be when he’s in the studio. He’s a professional after all, for him it’s in and out and no mess. – and he’s missing the point again but his brain feels so mushy.

He needs to apologize to his team. He has to, it’s the least he can do right now and the only right thing to do as well.

“Listen, Larry – “ he begins, knowing that starting with Larry is always a good idea, and he opens his eyes and wants to go on, but then his vision goes blurry despite him wearing his contacts and before he can say anything more he feels a dizzying rush and a ringing in his ears and from then on nothing but pitch black anymore.

“Phil!” somebody calls out to him, but that could be just his last piece of mind talking to him out of pity.

 

*

Waking up in his bed again is the sort of terrifying Deja-Vu Phil thought he’d left behind years ago – he really had his fair share for the rest of his life – but he can’t hear a wake-up call and he feels nearly as shitty as he did when he was at the weather station _and_ he’s fairly certain that happened, so his fear gets replaced with something between relief and annoyance.

What is he doing in his bed when he wanted to apologize to his team for letting them down? What the hell –

“ _Fuck, shit, fuck_ ,” he curses and tries to fight his way out of what seems to be several duvets and pillows, but instead of making headway towards freedom, one of his freed arms collides with something.

“You’re awake!”

Or rather, _someone_.

Phil opens his eyes, then, needing a bit to adjust them, but once that happened, he looks into the direction the well-known voice came from and he see Rita sitting on the bed in sweatpants and one of his old shirts he uses for his boxing session but got adopted by her about two years ago whenever it’s freshly washed in his closet again. Her relaxed attire is broken by her _absolutely not_ relaxed face and before Phil can try to say another thing, she hits his arm several times, cursing under her breath just like he did a minute before.

“You _goddamn_ idiot. You – you selfish and reckless _asshole_. _You dumb, non-thinking, stupid, brainless, dense_ human embodiment of, of – of a cracked thermometer,” she swears, anger so prominent that she’s trebling. “What did you think you were doing? Were you _even_ thinking at all? No, don’t answer that! You _weren_ _’_ _t_ thinking _at all_.”

The fury in her face is real when Phil looks at her; it’s also a bit scary, but he knows her better than anyone else in the world and he knows she doesn’t mean what she said – well, at least not as a direct insult or threat, though he’s sure she already vowed to kill him in twenty different ways in the time he was passed out.

“Did you just use five different words to call me unintelligent?” he asks her, kind of amazed and kind of confused. “And what does the thermometer-thing even mean?”

“Phil, that’s not the point. You _absolute_ idiot, do you know how much you scared me?” she fumes, and there’s still her anger, yes, but Phil can see the tears at the corners of her eyes, her concern and her worry coming through much more now that she nearly beat him to another near-death experience.

“I’m sorry?” he apologises, knowing he comes up short no matter how hard he’d try.

“You’d better be,” she remarks bitterly and takes his hand that lies on the bedsheet in hers, squeezing it, or well, nearly bruising it with the force of her grip. “You just collapsed right in front of me because you couldn’t get through your thick skull that you’re too sick to work. You dense idiot. Larry and I had to carry you to the green room before calling a doctor and you didn’t even have the decency to wake up at least for a second to make me worry less. I was goddamn scared before the doctor came!”

Her grip is still brutal, but Phil’s squeezing back and rubs his thumb over her knuckles. “I didn’t know,” he tells her and when she glares at him, he shakes his head and props himself up in the bed. “I thought I’d be able to do it. I didn’t think I would feel so bad,” he tells her in honesty.

“That’s right,” she answers. “You did not think. Not one bit”

It’s a bit harsh but he figures out he deserves it, with what he did to her while he was unconscious and her staying with him through it despite still having _her_ job to do. She’s just too good for him and this is the thousandth reason that proves it.

“What did the doctor say?” he asks instead, knowing that talking about his recklessness would just upset both of them more. If he’d push now, Rita would probably kill him with her bare hands and he’d rather pass on that.

Rita sighs, her forceful grip loosening a bit and interweaving her fingers with his, tucking her legs in underneath her. “Well, she couldn’t do much with you being unresponsive and all, but she said that you’ve got a cold and a light bronchitis, god knows where you caught that though. You’re on sick leave for at least two weeks and you can damn well believe that I’m not going to let you set one foot into work before that time is over.”

Phil nods at that, taking a breath to answer her but having another kind of deja-vu when he ends up coughing. He quickly turns his face away from her and more or less rasps into the bedsheet until the fit is over. Hell, it still hurts and he can’t really move his head without being in pain, but at least he’s not feeling as horrible as he did at the station.

“ _Fucking shit_ ,” he breathes out once he’s done and sits back against the headboard. He can see Rita rolling her eyes out of the corner of his eye.

“I can’t believe I’m out of town for four days and you get yourself bedridden,” she chides him, putting her forehead in her left hand, the ceiling light catching on the silver band there.

“Hey, you promised in sickness _and_ in health!” Phil protests, grinning even through the strain it takes him to say it, the talking not doing any good for his throat. “ _Anyone_ can talk the talk, but only the few walk the walk.”

She smiles, and he can see it peeking through her hand and, despite the pressure in his chest, he can feel his heart beating a little faster, his fondness for her growing a little more again, even after all this time.

“You’re a _goddamn_ menace, Phil Hanson. You know that?” she replies, saying his name how she always does: as fond as he is of her and also as annoyed as she usually is by his antics but too in love with him to be really mad about it.

“You love it,” he answers, smug and smirking and feeling light-headed again, but in the way only his love for her can do to him. “And I thought, I was a cracked thermometer.”

“Just, shut up _before_ I turn you into a cracked thermometer,” she tells him and places a kiss on the top of his head and then on his temple.

He believes it’s in her possibility to do that, so he does as told and settles back into the pillows, making sure to not let go of her hand until he falls asleep again.

**Author's Note:**

> Phil Hanson? You'd better believe because this smug motherfucker would be all proud to be married to the best woman on planet earth. (plus, rita would probably not take his name, so.) This especially goes out to the Small Fandom USA and all the rad hc's that never stop pouring in. And Phil can come across as very act-1 / pre-loop but that's because he's sick and pissed at himself. and because no one is perfect, kids, not even our hero, Phil Connors. 
> 
> (the swearing was also inspired by dan egan, who i've only seen gifsets of, but who is me in any political or high-pressure setting ever lmao) (( and for anyone who cares, i actually wanted to write a jersey boys thing but then this. happened. idk.)
> 
> I hope all of you are healthy.
> 
> if you have liked what you read, leave a comment if you want (it always means a lot!) or chat with me on tumblr (andreinbolkonsky) or twitter (xbigboysdontcry) where all I've done these past days is cry over bandstand or admire drew gehling
> 
> a reminder: you are loved, you are enough and you will achieve great things. you are right just the way you are, a living and breathing thing. keep going.


End file.
